A driver, whose name is still being withheld, was killed when he crashed on a competitive stage on just the second day of running at the 2022 event.
It is the fourth death in the last two editions of the famous tarmac rally after three competitors lost their lives last year.
Rather than cancelling the event as whole, organisers elected to turn it into a touring rally. The road closures will continue and the stages will proceed, however all competitors, even those entered in competitive classes, will need to adhere to the posted speed limits.
Explaining that decision, Perry said that it was impossible to continue to let cars race until there is a clear picture of what happened in the fatal crash.
And with the matter still in the hands of Tasmanian police, it's not expected there will be any answers until after the conclusion of the rally on Sunday.
"It's quite a remote area and very different to the accidents last year," said Perry. "No spectators or no external vision like we had access to last year. It's just so different, as every crash is.
"I won't speculate on what caused it, how it came about, what they were doing in the lead-up... The RallySafe device for us will be key to us.
"The car, as most modern cars do, carries it's own data device. Lotus will provide all that to the police. All that will be analysed.
"Until we know all that we have to accept that we can't have cars racing, until we understand all that data. And we knew last night that we won't have any of that until after the event is finished.":
Perry further explained that the compromise of continuing as a touring event was made with the large number of entrants already entered in touring-only classes in mind.
Targa Tasmania regularly fields large numbers of competitors that don't run in competitive classes and are limited to 130 km/h on the closed sections of roads.
For those competitors the only change is that they must now stick to the regular speed limits.
"We definitely considered [a full cancellation], but in fairness to everyone in the tours, who are just having a driving holiday, they should be able to still drive around," he said.
"We've de-tuned it a bit back to the posted speed limit, so anybody can drive any day on our roads that those speed. So it really took all of the risk out of it to give us some time to analyse what's happened and look at the whole situation.
"It's just so early and raw and, unlike last year, it's happened so early in the event. It's a different set of circumstances last year. We were able to go straight into post-event analysis last year, this year it's just so different.
"And in fairness to all of the people who are here literally for the holiday, they had every right to continue their holiday, and we all agreed on that last night."
This latest death follows a raft of changes made to try and improve safety on the event following the three deaths in 2021.
According to Perry, event organisers are at peace with the safety standards they set for the 2022 running of the event – but are equally devastated that another competitor still lost his life.
"The briefing [the competitors] got this week... I've given this briefing for 15 years and it's never been more extensive," he said.
"We can stand here, hand on heart, and say we've done absolutely everything we can over the last 12 months. And that's why we did cancel [the competitive stages].
"We are as shocked as anybody that after everything we have done that this has still happened, and we need to understand that."
